Ace of Cathedral cakes

Duff Goldman certainly has his cake.

But other people get to eat it.

Wearing faded jeans, a backward baseball cap and sneakers, the star of the Food Network show “Ace of Cakes,” told the audience his views on fun and fear at the sold-out Pitt Program Council event in the William Pitt Union Ballroom.

“Fun is my guiding principle in life. Money is not. Think about taking your least favorite class for the rest of your life. That is not fun,” he said.

He explained that you will never know success until you taste fear.

Goldman described how police chased him for drawing graffiti. He was arrested multiple times before getting sent to a juvenile detention center at 14.

“Nothing is as good for you as failing,” he said.

“I was just a juvenile delinquent, and now I’m asked to talk at places like the University of Pittsburgh. Why would a university like Pitt allow me to speak here? Someone didn’t do his or her homework,” he joked.

There was a lot of buzz that Goldman would make a Cathedral of Learning-shaped cake before the event, and despite his completion of that project, the colossal confection was not on stage when Goldman started speaking at 8:30 p.m.

Despite his cake-making prowess, Goldman said that he only opened Charm City Cakes to pay the bills. His true passion was always to be a bassist for a rock ’n’ roll band.

Though Goldman has found success in a field that was not his original passion, many perks have come along with it.

On Monday, Goldman rang the bell to open the stock exchange in New York.

“I’m ringing the bell, and I look up and there are all these traders and they were all clapping. I was like, ‘What universe am I in?’”

During the question-and-answer session of the presentation, there were many moments that humored the sold-out Ballroom. Goldman dished about what he thought about his fellow network foodies. He said Tyler Florence and Michael Symon are his favorite Food Network stars, Giada De Laurentiis is as flawless as she seems, and Paula Deen is crazy in the best sense of the term.

“The best cake is one that makes people smile. We aren’t curing cancer, but we are doing what we can to make people smile,” Goldman said.